Working with Summaries in MAXQDA
Christina Silver, PhD., FAcSS., SFHEA
christina.silver@qdaservices.co.uk

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Summaries in MAXQDA allow you to work at a more abstract level by summarizing
data segments that have already been coded and then view, display and analyse
your summaries. They can be useful for many different purposes. The MAXQDA Help
Menu provides additional information about the idea behind Summaries, as well as
instructions for generating and working with them.

Summary features in MAXQDA••••

Summary Grid – allows you to summarise coded-segments in a grid display
Summary Tables – allow you to display your summaries together withVariables
Summary Explorer – allows you to compare summaries according to cases orgroups
Overviews of Summaries – allows you to retrieve summaries you havewritten form different levels within the Document SystemWorking with Summary Grids
Clicking on the Summary Grid button (in the Analysis Menu) opens the Grid whichdisplays all Codes in rows, and all Documents in Columns (Figure 1). The bluesquares in the Grid indicate the presence of coded segments for each Document/Codeintersection. Clicking on a blue square displays those coded segments in the middle
panel. The right-hand panel is the place where you can write your summary of thedisplayed coded segments.

Figure 1. Summary Grid displaying all Documents (columns) by all Codes (rows)
and the presence of coded segments

If you have selected Documents and/or Codes activated, you can filter the Grid togenerate a more focused display using the two icons at the top left of the Summary
Grid window.

You can also choose to alter other aspects of the display, including to display
comments and/or memos

The coded-segments displayed in the Summary Grid are interactively connected tothe underlying data (Figure 2). This is helpful if you want to use surrounding datacontext and/or other applied codes to inform the writing of summaries.

Figure 2. Interactivity between Summary Grid and source Document

Working with Summary Tables
Having written Summaries in the Grid, you can use Summary Tables to display andcompare summaries. You build your own Summary Tables (as many as you need) byselecting the Documents and Codes to display and any relevant Variables (Figure 3.)

Figure 3. Creating a Summary Table – options for selecting Documents, Codes and Variables

The Summary Table displays the selected Codes (in the columns) by the selectedDocuments with Variable information (in rows) (Figure 4).

Figure 4. A Summary Table – displaying selected Documents, Codes and Variables

The summaries displayed in the Table are also interactively linked to the underlying
coded segments.

Working with the Summary Explorer
The Summary Explorer allows you to abstract further by comparing the summaries
you have written for selected Codes by Documents Groups or Sets as well as byindividual Documents (as in Summary Tables). In the example shown in Figure 5, we
first created Document Sets using the “Activate by Document Variable” - function(accessed by right-clicking on the top level of the Document System) and then chose
those Sets (and selected Codes) in the Summary Explorer. Instead of comparing
several selected Codes by individual documents (as is possible in Summary Tables),the Summary Explorer additionally allows focus on codes by groups – in this example– according to whether respondents have children or not

Figure 5. Comparing summaries by Document-Sets in the Summary ExplorerIn addition, you can generate Overviews of Summaries from different levels within
the Document System – all Documents, Documents within a Group or Set or for anindividual Document (Figure 6).

Figure 6. Summary Overviews across all Documents, by Document Group, Document Set and an individualDocument